I think your example of the roulette wheel is illustrative⌠People know that they are going to lose money in expectation but it is rational for many of them to play because the expected fun they have from a night at the casino exceeds the expected loss. For example if you churn $500 and the average payback is 92.5%, the expected loss is $33.50 and you might have more fun than with other recreational activities that cost that much. Of course, some people may have gambling problems or may irrationally think that they have an advantage. These are the cases that we should be worried about: people who have issues of understanding or volitional capacity.
Similarly, people can understand whatâs going on with Farmkind or Giving Multiplier and want to participate, understanding that their choice is benefiting the charities that Farmkind or Giving Multiplier prefer.
If they enjoy and understand the process employed, I donât understand why one would think that they were harmed or exploited
On the casino example: I agree that a gambler could decide that the expected financial loss was outweighed by the value they ascribed to the entertainment. However, that doesnât tell us what proportion of people around the roulette wheel fall into that category vs. people with impulse-control disorders or the like vs. people who do not have disorders yet make harmful decisions because they are too influenced by gamblerâs fallacies. I would put the burden on the would-be casino operator to prove that enough[1] of their would-be customers fell into the ârational gamblerâ category before considering Benâs objection to running a roulette wheel have been satisfactorily addressed.
Turning to the analogy, I think there is considerably more evidence of the ârational gamblerâ category existing than the âpeople who truly understand an FarmKind-type match, but enjoy it enough to experience it as a net positive.â A full understanding of the financial realities of gambling doesnât seem logically inconsistent with deriving enjoyment from itâpeople like winning even when a win has absolutely zero practical import, and people like dopamine hits. Nor does a full understanding seem inconsistent with valuing that enjoyment at $33.50, which is comparable to what they pay for nights of entertainment they report as having roughly equivalent value.
In contrast, Iâm having a hard time characterizing a plausible mechanism of action for the FarmKind scenario that produces some valued internal state (cf. âentertainedâ in the casino example) without either conflicting with other evidence about the standard donorâs preferences (which charity is their favorite) or being inconsistent with the standard donor having a true understanding of the match (that the only real-world difference from the world in which they directly donated to their preferred charity is more money going to the super-effective charity, with an equal reduction of the amount going to their preferred charity).
While I understand the concern that people might only participate in FarmKindâs matching because they misunderstand it, I believe there are those who could find psychological or strategic value in the process even with full understanding. My main point was that, if participants are fully informed and still choose to engage, then any ethical issues are primarily about ensuring transparency. I disagree with the idea that thereâs something inherently wrong with the process itself, as long as thereâs no deception involved.
I suppose you are saying that this is a situation where the facts are such that there should be a presumption of the participant being misled. But, arguendo, if the participant fully understands the process and chooses to engage, is there some residual wrongfulness? Because I would think the remainder of the inquiry is a prudential question of whether it has the effect of raising more funds for the effective charities.
[note that this is not about FarmKind specifically. Itâs a response on whether encouraging the donor to take a deal that is clearly inconsistent with their professed interests is OK as long as the donor fully understands the arrangement]
I think there is a strongâbut not irrebuttableâpresumption that the person fails to fully understand the process. Based on the differences in opinion, even the Forum readership seems to not be having an easy go at that . . . and thatâs a group of intelligent people whose background should make it a lot easier! I also suspect that relatively few people would go through with it once they had a full understanding. The basis for that suspicion is that it doesnât make sense with the userâs professed preferences, and the mechanism by which the user would gain enough psychological or strategic value have not been clearly defined. It might be possible to address those concerns, but likely at the cost of making the fundraising pitch less effective than other approaches.
Iâd only be willing to tolerate a low number of donors who were not fully informed slipping through the cracks. Part of it is that the org is actively creating the risk for donors to be misled. From a Bayesian point of view, a low base rate for full understanding in the pool of people who tentatively plan to donate would mean that the process for testing whether the person has full understanding needs to have an âaân awfully low false-positive rate to meet my standard.[1] So the charity would need a robust process for confirming that the would-be donor was fully informed. Maybe they could ask Jeff and Ben to do a video on why the process was illusory and/âor misleading in their opinion? After all, itâs hard to be fully informed without hearing from both sides.
After all of that, I question whether you are going to have enough donors completing to make the matching fundraiser more effective than one with a more straightforward pitch. Obviously, oneâs results may differ based on the starting assumption of how many potential donors would go ahead with it if fully informed.
Finally, I question whether this approach plays the long game very well. By the end of the understanding-testing process, the hypothetical donor would know that the modus operandi of the matching org is to ask people to engage in illusory matches that the organization knows are inconsistent with advancing said personâs stated preferences. That does not sound like a good strategy for building long-term relationships with donors . . . and long-term relationships are where a lot of the big money comes in.
Sâuppose only 5% of candidateâs have the required full understanding and should pass. If the process for confirming full understanding iâs even 90 percent accurate, I think weâd ââexpect 4.5 correct pass results, 0.5 false fail results, 81 correct fails, and 9 false passes per 100 examinees. In other words, a full 2â3 of the passes wouldnât have the needed full understanding.
I think I may have hidden the question that I was interested in my response.
I understand with your understanding of the motives and interests of the relevant actors, it is unlikely (maybe impossible?) for someone to do the matching process while understanding it fully.
But if that premise is satisfied, for the sake of argument, does that resolve the ethical question for you? Because my main issue was that Ben was suggesting that it would not.
Assuming the fundraiser, object-level charity, and those in privity with them had always acted in an ethically responsible manner with respect to the donor, I think the confirmed-full-understanding premise could resolve the ethical problem.
(Iâm hedging a bit because I find the question to be fairly abstract in the absence of a better-developed scenario. Also, I added the âalways actedâ caveat to clarify that an actor at least generally cannot behave in a manipulative fashion and then remove the resultant ethical taint through the cleansing fire of confirmed-full-understanding. Iâm thinking of scenarios like sexual harassment of employees and students, or brainwashing your kids.)
I think your example of the roulette wheel is illustrative⌠People know that they are going to lose money in expectation but it is rational for many of them to play because the expected fun they have from a night at the casino exceeds the expected loss. For example if you churn $500 and the average payback is 92.5%, the expected loss is $33.50 and you might have more fun than with other recreational activities that cost that much. Of course, some people may have gambling problems or may irrationally think that they have an advantage. These are the cases that we should be worried about: people who have issues of understanding or volitional capacity.
Similarly, people can understand whatâs going on with Farmkind or Giving Multiplier and want to participate, understanding that their choice is benefiting the charities that Farmkind or Giving Multiplier prefer.
If they enjoy and understand the process employed, I donât understand why one would think that they were harmed or exploited
On the casino example: I agree that a gambler could decide that the expected financial loss was outweighed by the value they ascribed to the entertainment. However, that doesnât tell us what proportion of people around the roulette wheel fall into that category vs. people with impulse-control disorders or the like vs. people who do not have disorders yet make harmful decisions because they are too influenced by gamblerâs fallacies. I would put the burden on the would-be casino operator to prove that enough[1] of their would-be customers fell into the ârational gamblerâ category before considering Benâs objection to running a roulette wheel have been satisfactorily addressed.
Turning to the analogy, I think there is considerably more evidence of the ârational gamblerâ category existing than the âpeople who truly understand an FarmKind-type match, but enjoy it enough to experience it as a net positive.â A full understanding of the financial realities of gambling doesnât seem logically inconsistent with deriving enjoyment from itâpeople like winning even when a win has absolutely zero practical import, and people like dopamine hits. Nor does a full understanding seem inconsistent with valuing that enjoyment at $33.50, which is comparable to what they pay for nights of entertainment they report as having roughly equivalent value.
In contrast, Iâm having a hard time characterizing a plausible mechanism of action for the FarmKind scenario that produces some valued internal state (cf. âentertainedâ in the casino example) without either conflicting with other evidence about the standard donorâs preferences (which charity is their favorite) or being inconsistent with the standard donor having a true understanding of the match (that the only real-world difference from the world in which they directly donated to their preferred charity is more money going to the super-effective charity, with an equal reduction of the amount going to their preferred charity).
Pondering what âenoughâ means opens up a new can of worms for sure.
While I understand the concern that people might only participate in FarmKindâs matching because they misunderstand it, I believe there are those who could find psychological or strategic value in the process even with full understanding. My main point was that, if participants are fully informed and still choose to engage, then any ethical issues are primarily about ensuring transparency. I disagree with the idea that thereâs something inherently wrong with the process itself, as long as thereâs no deception involved.
I suppose you are saying that this is a situation where the facts are such that there should be a presumption of the participant being misled. But, arguendo, if the participant fully understands the process and chooses to engage, is there some residual wrongfulness? Because I would think the remainder of the inquiry is a prudential question of whether it has the effect of raising more funds for the effective charities.
[note that this is not about FarmKind specifically. Itâs a response on whether encouraging the donor to take a deal that is clearly inconsistent with their professed interests is OK as long as the donor fully understands the arrangement]
I think there is a strongâbut not irrebuttableâpresumption that the person fails to fully understand the process. Based on the differences in opinion, even the Forum readership seems to not be having an easy go at that . . . and thatâs a group of intelligent people whose background should make it a lot easier! I also suspect that relatively few people would go through with it once they had a full understanding. The basis for that suspicion is that it doesnât make sense with the userâs professed preferences, and the mechanism by which the user would gain enough psychological or strategic value have not been clearly defined. It might be possible to address those concerns, but likely at the cost of making the fundraising pitch less effective than other approaches.
Iâd only be willing to tolerate a low number of donors who were not fully informed slipping through the cracks. Part of it is that the org is actively creating the risk for donors to be misled. From a Bayesian point of view, a low base rate for full understanding in the pool of people who tentatively plan to donate would mean that the process for testing whether the person has full understanding needs to have an âaân awfully low false-positive rate to meet my standard.[1] So the charity would need a robust process for confirming that the would-be donor was fully informed. Maybe they could ask Jeff and Ben to do a video on why the process was illusory and/âor misleading in their opinion? After all, itâs hard to be fully informed without hearing from both sides.
After all of that, I question whether you are going to have enough donors completing to make the matching fundraiser more effective than one with a more straightforward pitch. Obviously, oneâs results may differ based on the starting assumption of how many potential donors would go ahead with it if fully informed.
Finally, I question whether this approach plays the long game very well. By the end of the understanding-testing process, the hypothetical donor would know that the modus operandi of the matching org is to ask people to engage in illusory matches that the organization knows are inconsistent with advancing said personâs stated preferences. That does not sound like a good strategy for building long-term relationships with donors . . . and long-term relationships are where a lot of the big money comes in.
Sâuppose only 5% of candidateâs have the required full understanding and should pass. If the process for confirming full understanding iâs even 90 percent accurate, I think weâd ââexpect 4.5 correct pass results, 0.5 false fail results, 81 correct fails, and 9 false passes per 100 examinees. In other words, a full 2â3 of the passes wouldnât have the needed full understanding.
I think I may have hidden the question that I was interested in my response.
I understand with your understanding of the motives and interests of the relevant actors, it is unlikely (maybe impossible?) for someone to do the matching process while understanding it fully.
But if that premise is satisfied, for the sake of argument, does that resolve the ethical question for you? Because my main issue was that Ben was suggesting that it would not.
Assuming the fundraiser, object-level charity, and those in privity with them had always acted in an ethically responsible manner with respect to the donor, I think the confirmed-full-understanding premise could resolve the ethical problem.
(Iâm hedging a bit because I find the question to be fairly abstract in the absence of a better-developed scenario. Also, I added the âalways actedâ caveat to clarify that an actor at least generally cannot behave in a manipulative fashion and then remove the resultant ethical taint through the cleansing fire of confirmed-full-understanding. Iâm thinking of scenarios like sexual harassment of employees and students, or brainwashing your kids.)